


Roses in Montana

by bellecat



Category: Flowers in the Attic - V. C. Andrews, Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Dean, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, Omega Sam, inspired by Flowers in the Attic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 11:20:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1385752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellecat/pseuds/bellecat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't that he didn't love his children. He did. But he had to keep them safe, hidden away so that the creature who killed their mother could never find them, never consume them in a blaze of fire. </p>
<p>So he secreted them away to a small cabin in the wilderness, warded with every protection symbol he could find. </p>
<p>Just until he killed the demon. </p>
<p>But days turned to months turned to years, and Sam and Dean and their twin sisters wait in their harsh and helpless world, forming a new family of their own. Adult desires blossom and grow, withstanding the hunger and the cold, just like the hardy roses in Montana.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

I found myself vibrating - my entire body suffused with emotion, but I couldn't tell whether or not it was rage or disbelief or shock. 

My father's handwriting, neat and pristine, filled page after page of white space with words. He always wrote his manuscripts first in long hand, despite his easy embrasure of technology; he was a well respected novelist, if not a famous one, and I had read other stories he had published without any feelings of grief. 

My stomach turned as I set the pages down. My hands trembled; I clapped one over the other and held tightly to it. 

Every family had secrets. I knew this. Jemma MacBain was abused by her mother's boyfriend when she was a little girl. Thomas Farland's grandfather had robbed a bank. The heroes in the books and movies I'd read as I was growing up were always hiding things - being able to wield magic or entering a wardrobe to discover new lands and peoples. 

But my family was normal. We were. We were a cookie cutter mold - Alpha and omega and four children. Dad owned a garage; Papa wrote. 

I'd never known Papa to embrace his kinks outside of the bedroom, and so I had to assume that what I had read was the actual truth. 

He hadn't even bothered to change the names. 

How could they - was - 

Oh God, was my whole life a lie? What else were they hiding from me? Did my brother know, too? Was I the only one who had been kept in the dark? Did they laugh at me whenever I wasn't at family supper on Sundays?

My head fell forward onto the desk and I breathed out a shaky exhale. Absentmindedly, I smoothed the edges of the paper back in place until not a single sheet was out of order. 

Perhaps if I read it again, I would be able to tell that it was fiction. 

I glanced furtively around me; I was alone in the room - as far as I knew, I was alone in the house. The late spring wind blew through the open window and I saw the curtains - yellow curtains, Papa's favorite color - flutter at the edges. 

I tried to swallow down my discomfort, but I was still jittery, and so I poured two finger's worth of brandy into the cup that resided on the side table. I knocked it back quickly, ignoring the unpleasant taste and alcohol burn. 

And I read the first sentence aloud. 

"Sam Winchester had an idyllic life."


	2. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sam has the perfect family.

Sam Winchester had an idyllic life. He had a Mommy and a Daddy and an older brother who was the bestest big brother alive and always played cowboys and Indians with him. He had two younger sisters, still terribly tiny (they weren't even crawling yet! Sam was a little worried about their development, but when he mentioned it to his Mommy she just laughed and said that they should start crawling within a few months and did he want to hold Josephine while she fed Beth?) although they were bigger than they were a few months ago.

He had a bicycle and enough allowance that he could get something off the ice cream truck a few times a week if he spent it right (that is, if the ice cream truck would hurry up and come - Daddy said it would come when it was warmer even though Sam thought it was warm enough already) and he was the fifth grade class president. He had lots of friends and Mommy's other Omega friends just doted on him in a way that they didn't do with Dean, and all in all, he had a pretty good time every day except Thursdays (that was when he had math tests and Mrs. Stewart always made them really hard. Sam was certain it was because she didn't like him).

Yes, Sam Winchester had an idyllic life.

Until the fire.

*

For as long as Sam could remember, his mommy had read him a book before he went to bed. Dean had decided that he was too old to be read to about the time he started middle school, but it was one of Sam's favorite times of the day, and he was determined to keep the tradition up until Mommy didn't want to do it anymore. When he was small, she would read him picture books and kiss his forehead and go out of the room; Daddy would come in after and give him goodnights as well. Picture books were okay, he supposed, but he much preferred chapter books now, and so Mommy had started reading longer stories, a chapter or two (or three or four, when he was able to wheedle them out of her) a night, and they had just finished reading Lewis Carroll's _Alice in Wonderland_ and _Through the Looking Glass_ when Sam said that they should have an unbirthday party.

"But who would the party be for?" his mother asked him, thinking that he was going to say himself.

Sam thought seriously about the matter. "Well..." he drew the word out. "Daddy wouldn't like it if we had more than one birthday party, and my birthday was really soon already. So maybe we should have one big unbirthday party for all of us - for you and Daddy and Dean and me and Jos'phine and Beth." He scrunched his nose up. "Do you think that's too many people for one party?"

His mother laughed gaily and placed the book on his nightstand before she bent over to place a kiss on his forehead - which he promptly wiped off. He enjoyed being read to, but he was _eleven_ now and much too old for kisses outside of special occasions. "I don't think that's too many people," she said. "I'll talk to your father about it and we'll see."

And then she pulled the covers up to his neck and turned off the lamp and bent down and gave him another kiss, tapping him lightly on the nose. "You don't get out of kisses just because you're eleven, young man."

And Sam was sleepy and warm and snuggly and he supposed that it was okay if his mother still gave him a goodnight kiss as long as no one else knew about it.

*

When Sam came home the next day, Mommy was busy with the twins. "I think Bethie might be sick," she said, "and I've just got Josephine cleaned up from a a diaper explosion. Go play with Dean for a little bit and we'll talk in a few minutes, okay?"

Sam nodded dubiously. "Do you want any help?" His ears were ringing with the sound of Beth's wails, and he wrinkled his nose. He liked the babies when they were quiet, but he wasn't sure how Mommy stood it all day.

She reached out a hand to smooth his hair. "You're a good boy for asking, Sammy," she said. "But you go ahead and run on, and I'll take care of the girls."

Taking care of the girls turned out to be a long job. By the time Mommy was able to talk, he and Dean were firmly ensconced in a plot to become spies and find out all the secrets that the next door neighbor must be hiding in his ferns (it was common knowledge that he shot any dogs that wandered onto his land although no one had ever been able to prove it; Sam and Dean were convinced that they would become heroes if they could only get some proof) and then Mommy had to make supper. After supper, Sam had to finish his science worksheets and get Daddy to help him with his math problems and then he had to take a shower and go to bed.

He didn't get to talk to Mommy until she came in to start a new book with him, and when he asked her, with barely repressed excitement, whether or not they could have an unbirthday party, she laughed and said, "Your father didn't like the idea of having a big party so close to your own birthday, but we can have a little one, with just the family, would you like that? I'll bake a cake and we can decorate and have a special Alice themed meal."

"Thank you, Mommy!"

*

They decided to have the unbirthday party on the twin's half birthday, even though it was likely more because it fell on a Saturday than anything else.

Dean wasn't so very impressed with the idea, except for the part where he was going to be able to eat some cake, "although couldn't you make an unbirthday pie instead?" But he didn't tease Sam too much when Sam was hanging streamers and helping Mom to stir and mix and bake and cook, and he thought it was good fun when Dad took him out to go Jeep shopping with one of his buddies.

"Mommy," said Sam when the cake was nearly done, "I think I made it a little lopsided."

Mommy reached in with one finger and dabbed a bit of frosting off the cake and into her mouth, and Sam looked at her irately. "You're not helping matters!"

Then Mommy got that little twinkle in her eye the way she always did when she about to do something mischievous and Sam backed away, his thin arms thrown up in surrender. "Didn't mean it! Didn't mean it!" he shrieked, and it set one of the twins to crying, and before Mommy went to pick her up she scooped up more frosting with her fingertip and left it sliding off Sam's nose with a tousle to his hair.

"Josephine saved you," she said. "I was going to tickle you!" and she waved her fingers around excitedly and Sam giggled and made shooing motions.

"I'll take care of the cake," he said. "You go make Jos'phine stop crying!"

And she did, and by the time Daddy and Dean came home, there was cake on the table which read "Happy Unbirthday!" (which they got to eat first, before dinner!) and little finger sandwiches arranged in a chessboard pattern on rye and white breads, and a caterpillar made of cut fruit and pipe cleaners, and some strange egg and tomato things which Mommy said were supposed to look like mushrooms. There was toast and jam and roast beef (for Daddy) and Mommy had made a pot of tea, Earl Grey, which Sam wanted to like but instead politely exchanged for a glass of water.

And after supper, when Dean had helped clear the dishes and leftovers away, and Mommy and Daddy had laid the girls in their crib, they piled onto the couch to watch Alice in Wonderland as a movie ("Now this isn't the Disney version," Mommy had said, "because I don't like that one very much. This one has real actors in it and I hope you like it."). Sam was all set to snuggle between Mommy and Dean, pleased with his success in coming up with the Unbirthday party, when Dean said, "I don't want to watch a _girly_ movie."

"Hey!" Sam said. "I'm not a girl!"

"No, but you're an omega!" Dean hollered back.

"Alice was an Alpha!" Sam said hotly, and opened his mouth to begin a retaliatory tirade when Daddy's hand appeared in front of his face and in between him and Dean.

"Children!" Daddy said sternly. "We're not going to start fighting. Now, Sam, we're going to sit down and watch this movie, even Dean, and then tomorrow, Dean can pick a video for us to watch in the afternoon. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Daddy," Sam said meekly.

"Yes, sir," Dean said.

"Good. Now sit down."

*

Sam had dozed off during the movie, but he wasn't the only one. Dean was a dead weight against him, and through the crack in his eyelids he could make out Daddy slumped in his chair, snoring. Mommy was carefully peeling herself out from underneath them and he gave a sound of distress, but he was too sleepy to want to move until she made him. She slid a pillow into her place to prop him up and smoothed down his hair. "Just need to check on the girls," she whispered, "and then I'll help you up to bed."

She smiled fondly at Daddy and then he could hear the soft sounds of her footfalls as she made her way through the house and up the stairs.

His brain was slowly coming awake, and he wondered lazily whether he could go play with Trent from a few doors down tomorrow. He had nerf guns and Little Debbie cakes. He yawned and started to stretch, pushing Dean back over to his own side of the couch, and just when Dean was starting to wake up and grumble at him, Sam heard a terrifying noise.

His mother was screaming.

It startled him the remaining distance from sleepiness to wakefulness, and he was on his feet in an instant. "Daddy!" he cried out, and Daddy was struggling to his feet, too. The screams were still loud in the air, and Daddy took the steps two at a time, leaving Sam and Dean to follow in his wake.

"Dean!" Sam said, fearfully, and reached for his brother's hand.

They took the last few steps together, him and Dean, and then it was only a matter of a few feet down the hall - but Daddy was standing stiff and horrified, and they heard a roaring whooshing noise, like the crackling of a fire, and then they realized it was fire when they could see the flames begin to lick at the open doorway. "Get back!" Daddy called to them, and they retreated to the staircase, Dean lunging forward when Daddy ran into the nursery and Sam tugging on his hand to pull him back.

It happened so quickly, yet it seemed to span out into forever - heartbeat to heartbeat, terror and confusion racing in cacophony with the sound of flames and screams and cries from the twins. Daddy emerged from the room with two bundles - the girls - and shoved them so hard into Sam and Dean's arms that they almost fell backward from the thrust of it. "Run!" he thundered. "Run outside and don't look back!"

And Sam felt his eyes grow impossibly wider, and he closed his arms tightly around Beth to make sure he wouldn't drop her, and he ran just ahead of Dean out the front door.

 

 

 


	3. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sam's life has changed, and his Daddy changed with it.

The days that followed the fire passed in a blur of tears and baby girl screams.

Sam thought he would never stop crying, and he couldn't blame them for doing the same, even when his head was pounding because they wouldn't quiet. He rocked them and held them and let them sleep in the lee of his body on the spare bed in Mrs. Austin's house while Daddy met with firemen and police men and insurance men. Daddy kept saying that he'd seen someone in the room with Mommy and Dean had listened in on Daddy talking to Mrs. Austin, saying that he'd seen Mommy on the ceiling before - before he had to leave.

Daddy didn't have any family, and neither did Mommy, except himself and Dean and Beth and Jos'phine, and so Dean reported back that Daddy wasn't sure what they were going to do exactly. The whole house hadn't burnt down; Daddy's study had survived, as well as the kitchen, and their parents bedroom. His room and Dean's room was gone completely, and it was hard for Sam to sleep without his pillow on normal occasions, and what they were dealing with was far from normal. Every time Sam closed his eyes he could hear Mommy's scream and Daddy's silhouette in the nursery door, and he would pull the twins tighter to himself and make sure that the door to the room was shut and no one was getting in to get them. He'd overheard Mrs. Austin himself while on a trip to the bathroom saying that it was rare for his omega instincts to come in so soon, but maybe it was a good thing they had. Taking care of the girls helped him not to think about things, but Sam wanted to yell at her that Mommy was all he was thinking about and he took care of the babies because it was all he _could_ do.

They wanted their mother, with warm arms and fresh milk and smiles that could shine a light even in the darkest of rooms, but instead they got Sam, with fumbling arms coaxing them to drink milk from a bottle and Dean sometimes, rocking them to sleep (or more often, rocking Sam while he held one or the other of them) and Daddy, who was there during the night but only came into the room during the day a few times to make sure they were okay and Mrs. Austin who fetched them things like diapers and bottles and sandwiches when they needed them but otherwise left them alone.

It took a week before Daddy moved them out of Mrs. Austin's house and into an extended stay motel in the next county over.

The motel room smelled like stale cigarettes and really strong, really unpleasant men's cologne. Sam wrinkled his nose as soon as he walked into the place and surveyed the two beds with their faded flower comforter, sterile white crib, small formica table by the cramped kitchenette. "Can't we get a different room, Daddy?" he asked, but Daddy just grunted and walked past him, setting down the duffel bag he shared with Dean on the bed farthest from the door and his own bag on the other.

"Set the girls down in the crib," he said to Sam, and to Dean, behind him, "and stay here. I'm getting the rest of the bags."

It only took Daddy one more trip to the car and he was walking through the door with his arms weighted down by two diaper bags and two coolers of food. Sam didn't see the car seats, which the girls like to sleep in, or the stroller, though he supposed it didn't make sense to take the stroller out of the car.

"Put the food away in the fridge," Daddy ordered, and then he sat down at the table with his head fallen forward into his hands, and Dean nudged Sam towards one cooler while he took the other. A loaf of bread, some mayonnaise. Bologna, but not the kind that Mommy would buy. Individual slices of cheese. A box of plastic silverware, which Sam put on the counter, and a six pack of beer.

A gallon of milk, a box of cereal. A few cans of soup.

Sam looked at the food dubiously. For the first few days, he hadn't wanted to eat, and he couldn't remember what Mrs. Austin had fed him, but now his appetite was coming back, and the food Daddy had bought wasn't looking very appealing. He didn't like mayonnaise, even if Dean did, and where was the toaster? You couldn't have a sandwich if the bread wasn't toasted. And what were they going to have for dinner?

"Damned beta woman telling me how to raise my kids," Daddy muttered. "Sanctimonious..."

"Dad," Dean said, sitting down on a hard plastic chair, "Dad, are we going to go back to school tomorrow? I've already missed some of my final exams..."

Daddy looked up blearily. "What?"

"Are me and Sammy going back to school?"

It took him a minute to respond, and Sam looked over curiously. It wasn't that he wanted to go back to school, per se, but he missed his friends and his teacher, Mrs. May, and the cafeteria pizza. "No," Daddy said at length. "You're not going back."

"Dad," Dean laughed nervously, "are you feeling okay?" For Daddy had never let them stay home from school before, not unless they had a fever and chills, or the chicken pox and the school said that they had to stay home or else.

Daddy's eyes were empty and cold when he looked up again at Dean, and Sam shivered imperceptibly. "I feel dead inside."

*

What Sam learned in June:

1\. Monsters were real.

2\. A monster killed Mommy.

3\. Daddy was going to kill the monster.

Most of what Daddy said those days didn't make any sense, even though Dean nodded along like he knew exactly what Daddy was talking about. Apparently, Daddy had known that monsters were real for a long time, even though he'd always told Sam and Dean that they were being silly when they wanted him to look in the closet or under the bed and swore up and down that monsters didn't exist. Sam felt betrayed that Daddy had lied to them for years, but Daddy said that monsters were still fairly rare and that he didn't think that any of them would have bothered them.

But that was then. Now, Daddy was determined to train really hard, like an athlete training for the Olympics, and he was going to kill every damned monster he came across until he found the one that killed Mommy. Then he was going to kill him, too.

So instead of spending his days at the park with his friends, Sam was spending them inside motel rooms looking after the twins and watching television. Since Sam was supposed to watch after the twins more, Daddy had told Dean that he had to do the cooking - but Dean didn't exactly know how to cook, and Daddy didn't bring back really awesome stuff from the store, so they were stuck with a lot of cereal and sandwiches and spaghetti rings.

Sam was really tired of bologna sandwiches and spaghetti rings.

Daddy wasn't spending his time in the motel rooms. No, he was out and about, meeting new people and making new friends who had the skills that he wanted to learn. Daddy was learning more about weapons and brushing up on his marksmanship skills. He was getting a crash course in different kinds of monsters (and whenever Dean said, "Tell me about them, Dad! Please?", Daddy would tell him "No," in such a sharp, firm tone that Sam was certain it was scaring the girls) and different protections from monsters. He was building a library of protection symbols and rituals, with various printouts and loose leaf papers put into a three ring binder, and then the more powerful and pertinent information carefully transcribed into a new leather bound journal. It seemed to give Daddy some purpose and vitality, and instead of emptiness his eyes sparkled with rage, and Sam wasn't so sure it was an improvement.

The day Daddy took Dean to the gun range to teach him how to shoot a gun was the day that Sam began calling him Dad.

Dean was excited, more than ready to spend some one on one time with his father, and intrigued by the idea that instead of playing cowboys and Indians, he'd be holding a real, live gun and firing real, live bullets. He just knew that he was going to be a good shooter, could practically see the smoking barrel and ring of bullets left in perfect symmetry, and although he listened attentively to Daddy's lecture about gun safety and the parts of the guns he was being shown, he was impatient to finally get on with it and get down to the gun range.

Sam wanted to go, too.

"Please, Daddy?" he said. "I want to learn how to shoot, too. Why can't I?"

"Someone needs to watch the girls," Daddy said gruffly.

"But Mrs. Austin said that she would help however she could, and Mrs. Harvelle that we met last week said that she wouldn't mind babysitting if you needed it!"

Daddy glowered, and Sam shrank back. "You're an omega, boy," Daddy said. "Like your mama. I ought to have protected her better, but I didn't, so I'll damn make sure that Dean knows how to protect you. You don't need to worry about guns. Stay here and look after the babies."

"Daddy, that's sexist!" Sam cried out, hoping that he remembered the meaning of his vocabulary words the right way. "I can be just as good as Dean!"

Dean looked at him in warning, his shoulders slumped from where he stood next to the door, and Daddy strode forward, looming tall over Sam's small head. He picked him up bodily and dumped him on the bed next to the girls, pointing at them with one finger. "Watch your sisters and don't open this door for anyone, I mean anyone. And check their diapers. I think one needs to be changed."

Then he picked up the gun cases and opened the door, Dean trailing along behind him, the sound of the lock catching as it swung closed.

A minute later and Sam was already crying silent tears as he sat beside the girls, legs drawn up to his chin. He was desperate to go somewhere, to do something that didn't involve looking after Beth and Jos'phine, as much as he loved him. He wanted to play and run in fresh air, and go to the pool and get ice cream off the truck and learn to shoot like Dean. He needed a break from the stinky motel rooms and living out of suitcases and remembering what his mother sounded like as she died.

The rattling at the door caused him to perk up his ears, hopeful that they were coming back and that he would be invited along as well, but when the door opened, Dean closed it quickly behind him. "Told Dad I should probably take a leak," he said, and scurried over to stand beside Sam, wrapping his arms around him and hugging him tight. "So I haveta be real quick. I'm sorry you don't get to come with us, Sammy," Dean said earnestly. "I'll bet you can shoot even better than me if Dad would teach you." And Sam knew that Dean didn't really think that, but he hugged on tighter for a minute and felt better that Dean could see that he was unhappy and didn't think that he was worthless.

"Go on," he said, wiping his eyes. "Dad'll get mad if you don't hurry."

 

 


	4. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sam finds himself in Montana.

It was almost the middle of July before Dad came in and gave them the news. 

"We're moving," he said. 

Sam looked up from where he was trying to corral two crawling babies in the small hallway that led to the bathroom. He'd cleaned the floor himself to make sure it was safe for them. "To a new house?"

Dad nodded, and smiled, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. "It's a cabin. Up in Montana."

"Montana?" Dean said. "But... that's so far away."

"It is," Dad said with some satisfaction. He patted the full binder that lay beside him on the table. "I've got warding spells and all kinds of protection charms, and a new buddy of mine is going to come and help us get settled in."

"I don't want to go to Montana," Sam said. "Why can't we go back home?"

"That house burned," Dad said sharply. 

"Not all of it," Sam said, determined. "You could hire people to come and fix it back again. We'd feel close to Mommy that way."

"I've already spent the insurance money on the new cabin," Dad said. "That's where we're heading, bright and early tomorrow morning. Dean, I want you to make up the rest of the sandwich fixings for us to have on the road tomorrow. If there's anything else, you're in charge of freezing it or packing it and making sure it's ready to be loaded into the car when I say. I also want you to gather up the dirty clothes and put them in the laundry bag. I'm going out to the laundromat later so that we'll have all clean things." He turned his attention to Sam. "Sammy, you're in charge of packing up everything for the twins and making sure that their diaper bags are stocked. If we need anything else, you need to make a list before I head out."

Then his demeanor softened, and for a moment Sam thought he saw the Daddy he used to have, basking in the warmth that was directed his way. "You've done a good job with them. I know I've asked a lot of you, but you're turning out to be a fine man and great big brother. You too, Dean-o. I'm proud of you guys."

*

Early was an understatement. Dad's alarm clock started beeping at 5 o'clock, and as he'd had everyone bathed the night before, and most everything all set up to have last minute clothes and toiletries packed and then shuffled away, they were out the door and in the car by half past. When Dad had gone out to the laundromat the night before, he'd come back with big bags from Wal-Mart - new pillows for each of the boys, plus new books and activity magazines, and small stuffies for the girls to hold and gnaw at when the mood overtook them. "I'll probably need to get you some new things once we get where we're going," he said. "I'm not sure what the cabin has already. But it's going to be a long drive, and this ought to cheer you up."

Dean was fast asleep within a few minutes of the car in motion, but Sam figured that was because he got to sit in front. Sandwiched as he was between two car seats, Sam thought glumly that it would be a miracle if he ever got to go to sleep. To his left, little Bethie was all half closed lids and small baby smiles; to his right, Jos'phine was gurgling softly to herself, head lolling against the blue rabbit stuffie. 

Sam sighed and scowled. It was going to be a long drive. At least he got to switch seats with Dean after lunch.

*

The drive took two days. They had to stop every so often to attend to the babies, and heating up formula in run down, dirty gas stations was not something that either Sam or Dean wanted to repeat. Dad, of course, acted like it didn't matter, like it was just another run of the mill day, but Sam was embarrassed. Who had to do something like that?

They'd stopped the night before a tiny, family run hotel that Dad grumbled was outlandishly expensive (despite Dean peeking a look at the receipt, and he knew good and well that the Motel 6 they'd been in a couple weeks back cost the same amount and was far less hospitable) and Sam breathed a sigh of relief that they were going to sleep on a bed instead of in the car like he'd thought Dad might want to try. 

But the motel was long gone, the tiny town they'd passed through faded in the rearview miles back, and the car was winding through gentle swells and open vistas and pine forests until suddenly - they were there. 

The cabin was nestled at the base of the mountain down a long dirt drive - to the back rose trees, cedars and pines and cottonwoods. On the left side of the house Sam could make out the lines of a lake or a pond; the front of the place was wide open, grass and sky as far as he could see (at least until it met the shadows of the other hills thereabouts) and Dad stepped out of the car with a, "Might need to plant some trees in front of the house to close it off some more," even though Sam hadn't seen another car for a long time, and didn't even see a road from where he was standing, unbuckling one of the twins. 

Dean got out of the car, too, stretched his back exaggeratedly, and said, "This is it?" with a turned up nose and a wounded feel to his voice. "There aren't any other houses."

"That's the point," Dad said, and took Beth when Sam handed her to him and shoulders a bag from the trunk, keys already in hand. "Normally I wouldn't be able to afford a place like this, but I got it at a discount from another hunter."

This is a discount? Sam thought, and he missed his house in Kansas, with the sidewalk out front and his buddies down the road. The property looked like it could be fun - decent places for tree forts and hanging out in the woods, and open space for everything else in the front, but he was certain they must be the only people for miles, and that meant that he would be just as stuck out here as he was in the motel rooms. He missed his friends. 

The cabin itself wasn't anything like what he had pictured a cabin to be. It was made of wood - at least, partly - and also of stone, and it looked like things were growing on the roof, which sagged a bit to the right. It had a porch - or rather, it had a spot of wood flooring sunk into the ground at the front, with posts holding up a ramshackle overhang - and everything looked old and rundown and abandoned. 

"I have to pee," Sam whispered, hefting Jos'phine into his arms, and Dad grunted back at him and held the door open for him to go on through inside. 

It was small - a main room contained living space and kitchen area, with what looked like a woodstove sitting in the middle as a divider. Sam wasn't completely sure; he'd never seen one in real life before, but it looked like the picture from some of his pioneer books. There was a small refrigerator, similar to the ones he'd seen in the motels, and a table pushed against the wall with four chairs around it. There was a couch and two old recliner chairs with rips in their padding in the living space; two doors on the opposite wall led to a bathroom and a bedroom. 

Sam handed the baby to Dean without a word and went on into the bathroom, flicking the light switch and frowning when it didn't work. There was light coming in from the window over the toilet, so he could see, but he was troubled. It was so small and isolated, and there was only one bedroom. It wasn't that he minded sharing with Dean, but there were also Dad and the twins to think of, so did that mean that Dad would take the bedroom and he'd have to share the couch? Sam hoped it was a pull out couch, because otherwise that could get pretty irritating. 

He relieved himself quickly, shaking his cock before tucking himself back into his boxers, and flushed the toilet. It made a strange sound, like it didn't want to work, but eventually the sluggish water carried away the pale yellow stained water to replace it with fresh. 

"Hurry up!" Dean called out from the living room. "You're not the only one who has to go."

*

In the last town they'd driven through, Dad had stopped at a small grocery and picked up a cooked chicken and a tub of potato salad, so they had dinner ready as soon as they'd unloaded the car.

Dad had taken them out back and showed them how the generator worked, cautioning that they couldn't use a lot of electricity or the power would run out. "There'll be enough to keep the fridge working," Dad said, "but you have to make it last, so not much else."

Sam didn't understand what he meant by that. Couldn't Dad just go and get more gasoline when they were about to run out? 

"I'll get you boys stocked up tomorrow," he promised, and then he told them that they'd be having guests the next day, too - a man named Thomas Walker, who was going to help him put up the wards, and a widow, "a beta," Dad explained, "so she doesn't really know what it's like," who was going to - well, Sam didn't rightly know what she was coming for, but he figured he'd find out tomorrow. 

"Get some sleep," Dad told them, early, "Dean, you and Sam take the bedroom. Leave the girls out here. I'll look after my little princesses for the night."

*

Dean was a grabby sleeper. His legs and arms went out in every which direction, and it seemed like Sam was plucking one limb off of himself and shoving it back at his sleeping brother mere seconds before another one shot out.

This wasn't new for him. They'd had to share a bed before, falling asleep at home or in the string of motel rooms. Usually he could just shrug it off and deal with Dean's arm across his back or his thigh pressing down his knee, but the strange quiet - not even a hint of a car passing by, or a dog barking, or any sort of sign that the place was habitated by humans - made him uneasy, and he tossed fitfully. 

"Mama," Dean muttered in his sleep, and Sam quit trying to wrestle with his arms in favor of drawing himself up in a tight, seated ball, curve of his back flush with the headboard. He hoped Dean was having a good dream. He stayed that way for a long time, envying him his casual sleep and dreams, and he must have nodded off at some point, because when he opened his eyes again light was shining through the curtainless window and the rest of the bed was empty. 

He stretched and sat up. Noises from the front room drew his attention, voices different from either Dean's or Dad's, and the twins weren't talking. He shuffled through his bag, pulling out fresh clothes - jeans, t shirt, underwear, socks - and shrugged into them, leaving his old things puddled on the floor. 

When he stepped through the doorway, he was greeted by the sight of a large black man laying out bundles of herbs onto the table, carefully placing some in bowls and some to the sides. Dad was leafing through his binder and journal, making notations on a yellow lined legal pad, and Dean was bouncing Beth in his lap while Jos'phine played quietly with her fingers and stuffie at his feet. 

The most imposing figure in the room, however, was a woman. She was certainly no younger than her mid thirties, though she might well have been considerably older. She stood shorter than Dad, but she wasn't short, and what she lacked in height, she made up for in presence. Her hairstyle was severe - every single strand of her light, ash blonde tresses pulled tightly back to coil into a bun which was placed in the very center of the back of her head. Her face, too, was dour - flinty eyes beneath sparse brows, nose hooked like an eagle's beak, lips thin and uncompromising. 

If Sam had been older, and of a persuasion to enjoy the charms of women, he might have conceded that she could be handsome, given the right circumstances; but as he was not, she was merely imposing, and he decided right from the start that he did not like her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I haven't actually been to Montana before. Or anywhere around there, for that matter. I'm trying not to make too much of an ass of myself in my descriptions of place, but please forgive me if I get it wrong.


	5. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the house is warded and Sam has epiphanies.

"So this is the omega," the woman said, her eyebrow raised, and Dad barely looked up from his papers as he offered, "Sam. Meet Morrigan Hall. She's your closest neighbor and has kindly agreed to help me look out for you children."

Sam looked up at her uncompromising face, frowning lightly. "Don't you mean _our_ closest neighbor?"

Morrigan grimaced. "You shouldn't speak back to your alpha."

John waved her off. "It's fine. And no, Sammy. _Your_ closest neighbor. You and Dean and the girls will be living here full time, but I won't be. I can hardly hunt down that demon bastard if I'm hiding out here with you in Montana, can I?"

"Dad?" Sam looked over to Dean for support, but Dean shook his head minutely, and gave him a look of warning. Sam wasn't sure what that meant. 

John looked up from his papers, holding them out to the black man and asking him, "This will work, right?" before refocusing his attention on Sam. "It'll be fine, Sammy. It's just for a little while, and then we'll be able to be a family again." Nobody noticed the exchange of glances present between the strange man and Morrigan Hall. "Now, you and Dean take the girls in the bedroom and out of the way. You missed breakfast, but we'll have lunch after we finish warding the house."

*

Warding the house was accomplished by symbols with a side helping of chants.

John had a sour look on his face as he spoke the words, like he didn't really think that they would work, but his fingers were sure and steady as he drew the strange symbols first in graphite, and then traced over them with a small paintbrush in some red-black paint mixed by the other man. The symbols were placed all over the house - they were small and unobtrusive, but they were formed on either side of each window and doorway, on the stone outside the house by the front door, in each corner and by the sinks.

"I think you may be overdoing it just a little bit, my friend," said the man.

"His name's Walker," Dean whispered to Sam, and they both watched from the doorway of the bedroom as John shrugged.

"This is my family," he said, and Walker nodded.

The woman - Ms. Hall, Sam thought he should think of her as, seeing as she didn't really invite familiarity - was given the task of mixing glue and salt and spreading a thin line just in front of the windows, on the sills. Sam wanted to ask why she was doing that, but the way she watched him, sometimes, suspicious and condescending in turn, had him seeking to stay very close to Dean, or to the girls when she entered the bedroom. He didn't trust her with his sisters.

Lunch had been brought from Ms. Hall's house, a lasagna wrapped in foil and placed in a cooler, and so it didn't even need heating when they pulled it out and went to apportion it. Ms. Hall went to take care of it herself, but John called her over to himself and Walker, and told her that Sam could handle it.

She was caught between satisfaction that the omega was attending to the chores and her keen desire to make sure that he did nothing amiss; her observation of him went unnoticed by the other men, and by the time Sam had brought the paper plates to the their seating area, she was remarking, "Of course you cannot expect that an omega share a bed with an alpha. You must put Dean out here, on the couch, and the babies can go in with," and here she paused, as if she didn't care to speak his name, "Sam, in the larger bed."

"I thought I'd bring back an extra cot or mattress on my first trip back," John said, and Sam put the plates down in front of them quietly, listening intently, despite the growl in his stomach. It had done no good to question for the answers he wanted, so he supposed he needed to find them another way - observation.

"As long as it remains in the living room," Ms. Hall said, and Sam expected Dad to call her out on her presumption, but he just shrugged.

"Sure, if that'll make you happy."

*

After lunch Sam and Dean were conscripted to help Dad and Walker and dig a trench. It didn't have to be a big one, Walker told them, just a little unbroken depression outlining the areas of the yard that were warded. Sam was beginning to get the feeling that Dad was going to order them to stay inside of that area, and despite the fact that the girls were inside with only with Ms. Hall to watch them, and that he didn't really want to be outside digging in the dirt for something he couldn't understand, the anxiety that was weighing down his stomach and making his meal shift uncomfortably inside him was driving him to eke out the most space he could with the area that he had been allotted to dig in. A quick look over at Dean showed him that his brother was thinking the same thing, a grim look on his face as he furrowed through the clover and soil.

Some of the herbs that Walker had laid out earlier had been mixed with seeds and water; the solution would be poured into the trench and into the ground. "As the seeds come up and grow," Walker explained, "the protection will be even more potent."

"Why didn't your buddy already ward this place?" John asked him.

Walker shrugged. "He thought that protection wards were the same thing as witchcraft. Makes sense," he said, "but I don't see a reason to leave myself vulnerable when I can use the same magic, or whatever, against them."

John nodded, then picked up one of the jugs of solution. "Let's do this."

* 

The picture of what their life would entail in Montana was gradually becoming clearer to Sam. He ached to talk to Dean about it, but when he turned to his brother and opened his mouth, Dean clasped a dirty hand over it. "Not right now, Sammy, okay?" Dean said, and Sam noticed for the first time how tired his brother looked. "Know you're scared, but I am, too. Can we talk about it later?"

Sam nodded unhappily. "I guess."

"Thanks."

And then Dean went outside to watch the taillights of their father's car fade into the distance. Sam took a deep breath, and swallowed back his tears. He couldn't cry right then. Maybe later, when it was darker and even quieter and no one would see. Dad promised that he would be back later with supplies for them, and leave to join up with Walker tomorrow, but there was a part of Sam that wondered if Dad was ever coming back, if they were going to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere forever and ever.

He went about the cabin mechanically, tidying up the contents of the diaper bags and countertop. The girls were blessedly asleep, and Sam was grateful for the respite from having to care for them.

He wasn't even old enough to be mated, and his father expected him to - to - Oh, God.

Sam had the horrible realization that he was going to have to act like the twin's new mother. He was going to have to feed them and bathe them and dress them and play with them and watch them _all the time_ , just like if he was their mother and not their brother.

Dad said that he'd be back regularly, but his behavior over the past several weeks hadn't exactly shown Sam that he was going to be let off the hook even then.

His eyes went wide with the epiphany, and he dropped the bib he was holding onto before his knees buckled out from under him. He couldn't think, couldn't call for Dean without maybe waking one of them up, and for the first time in his life Sam felt the barest twinge of hate for the girls he knew he would protect with his life.

He crawled to the side of a recliner, seeking shelter against the worn fabric, and tried to keep his breathing calm, his sobs quiet. His vision blurred the room in front of him, and his body felt like it was shaking, but his mind was curiously blank and filled with everything at once.

It took him a long moment to put a name to the feeling.

Panic.

Someone was saying his name. It felt like it was coming from a great distance, and he turned his head blindly toward the source. Then Dean's arms were around him, and Dean held him tightly and rocked him like he was one of the babies, and Sam could hear him say, "It's okay, Sammy. I'll protect you. It's going to be okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not really happy with this chapter, but it's out. The next one starts to really dig into their life in the cabin, and we see more of the not-so-lovely Morrigan Hall.


	6. Five

Sam woke up, blinked blearily, and stretched out his arms.

For the second day in a row, he was all alone in bed, though a quick glance to the side showed the babies resting in a playpen that hadn't been there the night before.

He wasn't sure how he had gotten to bed the night before, come to think of it. The last thing he remembered was crying and starting to wail and Dean soothing him. His father must have come back, but he just couldn't remember.

Seeing the sun peeking from behind the curtains, he started. Dad! He needed to hurry himself up if he was going to see his father before he left. He was quiet, but hasty, as he departed the bed and threw himself into the living room.

"Dad!" he called out. But there was Dean, asleep on the couch, and a big pile of stuff in the middle of the room, and no father in sight. "Dad?" he called out again, dejected. He didn't expect an answer; there was no other place for his Dad to be in the cabin, besides the bathroom, and that door was open.

"He already left," Dean said softly, but groggily. "He lied when he said he was going to stay until morning."

"But..." Sam didn't know what to say. "But why?"

Dean sat up and shrugged. "I dunno." He paused, seemed to consider. "He must have had a good reason. He must have heard about a monster hurting someone and left early to help."

Sam scowled. "I don't care about monsters hurting someone. He's _our_ dad."

"C'mere," Dean said, and patted the space beside him.

Sam bounced over and threw himself under his brother's covers ( _new_ , his brain supplied).

"It's going to be okay, Sammy. Dad'll come back, and he'll kill the demon, and then we can all go home again."

"But what if he never comes back?" Sam asked in a small voice.

Dean scoffed. "Sure he'll come back, Sammy. He'll always come back."

"Mommy didn't."

Dean flinched, and he bit his lip. "I miss her, too."

Sam leaned over to rest his head against Dean's shoulder.

*

Little Jos'phine had just started wailing, and Sam had only just gone to pick her up and see what was wrong ( _probably a diaper change_ , he thought, _and then milk_ ) when Dean heard the unmistakable sound of a key turning in the lock. He hadn't moved from his position on the couch yet; he was waiting for Sam to bring out the babies so he could cuddle with whichever one he wasn't busy with and then keep them contained while Sam heated milk and got breakfast ready. _Probably_ , he thought, _I can let Sam arrange all the new stuff and let me look after the girls for the day._ Seeing Sam distressed, unable to calm himself last night, had been terrifying. He didn't know what to do to make it better; he couldn't exactly drive them back home himself, and when Sam started babbling something about the girls and being a mother and how just wanted to be a boy, well, he knew _something_ that could do, at least.

But Dad had left, and although he wanted to believe - for a fraction of a second - that his father was coming back to look after them himself, he knew that it wasn't the case, and he didn't think that anyone else was supposed to have a key.

Then Morrigan Hall stepped inside, and turned her frown to where he was tangled in the sheets, trying to rise. "What are you still doing in bed?" she snapped.

"What are you doing in our house?" he countered, and she strode forward, diving in to catch at his head by the earlobe and pull him to his feet.

"That will be enough sass from you, young man," she declared, and released him before he overcame his upbringing and surprise and swung a punch at her. "Your father has made arrangements with me to look in on you several times per week and to address any disciplinary measures that are deemed necessary. You'll find that I don't intend to spare the rod to spoil the child."

Dean shifted uneasily. That sounded an awful lot like a threat. From behind her, he could make out Sammy holding both girls close to his chest, his arms straining under their weight to hold them steady against his hips.

"Omega!" Ms. Hall barked out.

"Yes?" Sam said in a small voice.

"Come to stand beside your brother," she ordered.

He hesitated, looking at Dean in affirmation, and Dean gave a tiny jerk of his head to say that it was alright. He wasn't so sure that it was, but he stood up straighter, trying to project confidence. He had to make sure it was okay. For Sammy.

Sam fell into place beside him, still holding onto the girls, and they saw Ms. Hall's lips thin into a sneer. "Hand one of the infants to your brother," she snapped. "You look like you're about to fall over."

Sam took a deep breath, and Dean took Beth from his arms.

"Good," she nodded, and took a breath. "We will be going over some rules."

She had a satchel thrown over one shoulder, and from it she drew out two sheets of paper, and held them up to read off of. "You will each get a copy of the rules to ensure that you remember them. One," she read. "You are to be fully dressed at all times. There will be no running around in your underwear, or even worse, naked.

Two. The alpha and the omega are to never share the bedroom or the bathroom. Do you know what the girls are?"

"Betas," Dean provided slowly, not sure why it mattered. And what was wrong with them both sleeping in the bedroom? It had a lot more space than the couch, big enough for both of them. And who cared? If he needed to take a leak while Sam was in the shower, what was that to her? It wasn't like he was going to open the door and go on the steps.

She nodded. "I suppose that is alright, then. They are so young, after all. Three. You will keep this cabin neat and orderly. You shall make your beds upon rising, and you will not allow dishes to pile up in the sink. Any toys or schoolwork must be put away immediately upon finishing using them."

"We get to go to school?" Sam spoke up, hopeful.

"No," Ms. Hall said shortly. "Four. You will not leave the boundaries established by the wards. As you boys helped to dig the trench, you are aware of what those boundaries are.

Five. Either your father or I will provide you with schoolbooks and other study materials. You will spend no less than four hours per day educating yourselves. I will be testing you, so do not think you can get by with not doing the work.

Six. You will not be wasteful with any food that is provided to you. If I bring you a meal, you will eat all of it. If you make a meal, you will eat all of it. I will not be lenient if I find you to be wasting food.

Seven. You will bathe your bodies and brush your teeth daily.

Eight. You will not play with the private parts of your bodies. You will not think about those parts of your bodies. You are permitted to clean them while bathing quickly and efficiently.

Nine. When I come to check in on you, you will line up at the doorway immediately, unless you are tending to one of your sister's needs. After the issue is taken care of, you will join your brother quickly. Omega, you are not allowed to look me in the face. Your eyes must be trained towards the floor at all times. Dean, as an alpha, you are permitted to look up. Neither of you will speak unless spoken to.

Ten. You will be conservative with the gas for the generator. This means that you will only run the refrigerator while there is food inside of it, and you will not use the electricity for the lights, for anything you must plug into an outlet, or to run the hot water heater.

I will, of course, reserve the right to add new rules as necessary."

She paused, her eyes flicking over their puzzled expressions. "Are you looking at me, omega?" she said softly, dangerously. Sam felt his eyes go wide as he stared into her face. "You _are_ looking at me. What did I just tell you with rule number nine?"

Sam shook his head, and moved to lower his head despite his confusion, but it was too late. She stood in his space, towering over his slender frame, and, tucking the papers beneath one of her arms, she quickly reached out with her hands and boxed his ears. Sam jolted at the unexpected punishment, his grip on Jos'phine slipping, and squeezed her tighter even as his eyes filled with tears.

"Hey!" Dean said, irate. "You can't just hit him like that!"

Ms. Hall rounded on him. "You will learn not to speak until you're spoken to," she promised, and then she boxed his ears as well.

Before Dean could catch his breath or decide how to handle the situation, she had sat down the papers and was halfway out the door. "You'll never know when I decide to come and check on you," she said. "It would be in your best interest to learn the rules and be prepared. Next time I won't be so lenient as I was today."

*

"Why doesn't she like me, Dean?" Sam asked as he handed his brother a jar of baby food and set a bottle down beside him. Dean looked a bit mystified as to how he was going to get the pureed apples into Jos'phine's mouth, but he tried gamely to situate her and himself.

"I dunno, Sammy. I think she's just jealous."

Sam scoffed. "I'm serious, Dean."

"Me, too," Dean said, relaxing as the first spoonful went in without a problem. "She's old and she doesn't have a mate or babies. I think she's jealous 'cuz you're an omega."

"I wish I wasn't," Sam said darkly.

"You take that back!" Dean said loudly, surprising his sister. He tried to calm down and shush her with more food. "Take that back, Sam," he said, softer. "I like that you're an omega. Want you to always be my omega, kay? You smell good."

Sam smiled unwillingly. "You like that I'm an omega? But I'm not as strong as you."

"You're also not as old as me," Dean pointed out, but nodded. "Yeah. You're a good omega, Sammy."


End file.
